[Ring of Fire]

Here's another name for discussion:

Brent Flahr

http://www.eliteprospects.com/staff.php?staff=6969

http://www.eliteprospects.com/staff.php?staff=6969

Minnesota Wild General Manager Chuck Fletcher today announced the National Hockey League (NHL) club has named Brent Flahr (pronounced FLAYRE) Assistant General Manager. Flahr will oversee all aspects of player development and evaluation and assist Fletcher in player personnel decisions, contract negotiations and league related issues.

"Brent is one of the top talent evaluators in the NHL and was an integral member of Anaheim's scouting staff on their 2007 Stanley Cup team," said Fletcher.

Flahr, 35 (6/25/74), spent the last two seasons with the Ottawa Senators as Director of Hockey Operations. Prior to joining the Senators, he spent four seasons working as an amateur scout for the Anaheim Ducks including the 2007 Stanley Cup team. From 1996 to 2003, Flahr spent eight seasons as part of the Florida Panthers organization, serving in a variety of positions, including Assistant to the General Manager, and Scouting and Video Coordinator. He was also the Director of Hockey Operations for the Panthers' AHL affiliate, the San Antonio Rampage. Flahr has worked with Fletcher two times previously, spending three seasons together in Anaheim and six seasons in Florida.

http://www.hockeywilderness.com/2013...ot-at-a-gm-job

Upon his arrival, he was charged with facing the same problems as Chuck Fletcher: A sub-mediocre team losing their only star player, and a non-existent prospect pool. Flahr's main job was the latter problem, as he is charged with running the Minnesota Wild's draft preparations, and the draft itself. Tommy Thompson, the previous Assistant GM, handled the 2009 draft (which yielded Nick Leddy, Matthew Hackett, Darcy Kuemper, and Erik Haula, which was pretty impressive), so Flahr's first draft wasn't until 2010.

And what a draft it was. As you *might* remember, that was the draft that the Wild acquired Mikael Granlund, Brett Bulmer, Johan Larsson, Jason Zucker, and Johan Gustafsson with their first five picks. And I'm not even taking into account later trades for 2010 first-rounders in Charlie Coyle and Nino Niederreiter. This started the Wild's rebounding in their farm system, and boy, it has rebounded. While most of the big-ticket Wild prospects have graduated to the NHL, the Wild have such a glut of talented young forward prospects that they've taken to drafting long-term college projects to try to stagger them.

What's perhaps most impressive is that the Wild have assembled such young talent without completely bottoming out. While many turn-arounds come from assembling Top-3 picks (See: Chicago with Kane, Toews; Pittsburgh with those two guys), the highest the Wild drafted during Flahr's tenure was 6th. Mikael Granlund (9th) and Jonas Brodin (10th) were drafted in positions where picking is much less of a sure thing than a Top-3 pick.

He's worked under Chuck Fletcher, Bryan Murray, and Brian Burke and is young (39), his strength is scouting/drafting, and has loads of experience. I don't know if he's available contract-wise but I think Brent Flahr is an interesting name to add to the discussion.